


hiraeth

by mazescorched



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Ghosts (Kind Of), Hallucinations?, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-TDC, Survivor Guilt, fix-it that doesn't fix anything, idk how to tag sorry, like a lot of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-15 22:57:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14799581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazescorched/pseuds/mazescorched
Summary: hiraeth; a homesickness for a home you can’t return to, or that never was↪what if home is a person who isn’t here anymore?





	hiraeth

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fanfic ever so sorry in advance if it's not the best! also it's very dark and considerably angsty because i'm still very sad over newt. enjoy!

Thomas saw them.  The boy with the blonde hair, and an immeasurable sadness in his dark brown eyes.  The girl with the dark, cascading hair and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose. 

Sometimes only for a moment- brief enough that if he blinked quickly, he could blame it on the sunlight, an oddly placed shadow.  

It was usually longer, much longer, though.  He’d see them standing at the edge of the ocean.  Around the fire after dinner. In the beginning, he would point them out, tell anyone who would listen- “Do you see him? Do you see her? It’s Newt, and Teresa.  They’re here.”

They indulged him at first.  He remembered when he first told Minho, the way the boy’s eyes lit up and he scanned the horizon.  How he seemed truly desperate to see what Thomas saw, any flicker that they were there, that they were real, that they were  _ alive. _  He didn’t see them, he told Thomas.  It must be a trick of the light, he reasoned.  It was the reflection of the ocean, or the way the heat of the sun radiated off the sand.  

Thomas didn’t see the logic in that, but that thought was one he kept to himself.

Eventually, Minho stopped looking when Thomas tried to draw his attention to a point in the horizon, or a spot at the end of the dinner table.  “They’re not here, Thomas,” he’d say in a voice that was thick with unshed tears, but eventually faded to the monotone of something rehearsed, something said too many times. “They’re gone.”

What Minho didn’t understand, Thomas told himself, was that they  _ were  _ there.  How could they not be, he asked, when the sunlight reflecting off Newt’s hair as he stood at the edge of the water was so golden, so bright, that he simply could not imagine how a trick of the light could create such a perfect image of the blonde boy.  How could they not be, when Teresa’s eyes were a the same rich shade of blue they had always been when she caught his eye from across the table, how they still glimmered with the same mischief and light that no shadow could replicate. How could they not be with him when he was convinced that the boy and girl no one else seemed to see were more real, more tangible than he believed himself to be?

For a while, they were silent, content with watching him from wherever he noticed them.  Teresa frequented the campfire, Newt the ocean shore. The occasional nod, often a smile, as if to assure him that his eyes didn’t deceive him.

Another thing he didn’t tell Minho- he began to see them at night, too.  And not just see. The sun set, his eyes fluttered shut, and he heard them. As it had been when he caught a glimpse of them, hearing their voices seemed more real than it ever was before.  

But they didn’t say what he thought they would.  Words, words he burned into his brain, engraved so deeply that surely nothing, not even the procedure that so harshly took any memory of his before the maze, could take them away.  They twisted them around, distorted them into things he never would have believed. But he did believe-- they looked so real, their voices sounded so real, how could their words not bear the same truth their presence did?

_ \- I did what I thought was right. _

_ What you did wasn’t right. _

_ -Just leave me. _

_ Don’t leave me. _

The malice was so raw, the resentment so genuine that the phrases would echo in his brain, over and over until he awoke with a start.  Sometimes with screams. Screams he blamed on nightmares of Janson and WICKED-built mazes, not the boy and girl that haunted his dreams and twisted his thoughts.

He saw them less and less as the days crept by.  But the voices grew louder as the night darkened.  Gone were the boy and girl who smiled at him from the edge of the campfire, in their place were their voices, that he no longer needed to fall asleep in order to hear.

- _ Please, Tommy.  Please. Kill me. _

_ Please, Tommy.  Please. Cure me. _

- _ I’m sorry. _

You _ should be sorry. _

Thomas couldn’t silence them.  Their torments grew worse, more painful with each hour that passed.  The voices were deafening, so loud that when he closed his eyes that it felt as if his skull would burst.

So he kept his eyes open.  He watched over those who slept around them, and scanned the horizon, making sure everything was as it should be, he told himself.

Searching for a boy with blonde hair and a girl with blue eyes, his mind echoed.  A boy and a girl with warm smiles and playful winks, not the creatures that whispered in his brain when the fire faded to ashes and the sun dipped beneath the ocean.

Others began to take notice- of the wrinkles in his clothes, the shadows beneath his eyes.  The way his hands shook when he held something, the way his whole body trembled. Brenda asked about the dark circles under his eyes too often for his liking.  Frypan began to give him cups of a sweet-smelling herbal tea, which he said would help him sleep. Thomas waited until his back was turned, and poured the tea into the sand.  

Minho didn’t say anything, only watched Thomas with a steady, stoic eye.   _ He knew,  _ Thomas realized.  Minho noticed how he didn’t point at the horizon anymore, or glance towards the end of the table.  Minho knew he didn’t see them anymore. And he realized, or was beginning to realize, that whatever Thomas was seeing this time was worse.

He still refused to sleep, despite valiant efforts on the part of what felt like every person at the safe haven.  Gally shouted, and Minho threatened. Frypan tried to bargain. Brenda pleaded, and as the four of them carried on for what felt like hours and seemed to have no intention of stopping, Thomas agreed, promising them he’d try his best to sleep.

The closest he managed to get was staring dully at the ocean for a few hours in the middle of the day, as four pairs of concerned eyes bored into his head, and two phantom voices ricocheted around inside.

_ Cure me.   _

_ What you did wasn’t right.   _

_ Please, Tommy.  Please. Don’t leave me.   _

_ You should be sorry. _

By the time the first hour passed, he found himself unable to grasp how something could be so silent, yet so deafening at the same time.  

By the third hour, he could barely remember what had actually happened that night in WICKED’s final stronghold.  Faces blurred together, names and words were so distorted that everything seemed to be slipping away. Suddenly, he couldn’t quite recall the exact intonation of Newt’s accent, or the glint of Teresa’s smile.  

The sun had set hours ago when he finally stood.  The echoes in his head had dulled to a level he deemed bearable.  Most everyone seemed to be asleep- Brenda’s head rested on Frypan’s shoulder, and it appeared they hadn’t moved since earlier that afternoon.  He brushed lingering grains of sand from his shirt, and ran a shaky hand through his hair. Setting off towards the beach, Thomas walked along the edge of the water, relishing feeling of the cold ocean against his too-warm skin.  

Something caught his eye ahead of him, a human silhouette.  As he drew closer, he began to notice things he thought he would never see again.  A flash of a smile, the reflection of moonlight on golden hair. It became apparent to him that the figure standing before him was one he knew.  The long limbs, the dark brown eyes. The easy grace with which he studied the horizon. Newt.

It took all of the control he had not to sprint as fast as he could towards the boy in front of him.  When he finally reached Newt, the blonde boy turned to face him. “Tommy?” he asked, disbelief in his voice.

“Newt.” Thomas gasped, and flung his arms around him.  For a second he was overwhelmed by the reality of it all- it seemed too good to be true.  Newt’s arms were warm around his torso, and his hair was soft as it brushed against his skin.  He could feel the material of Newt’s coat, and hear the faint beating of his heart from where his face was pressed against his shoulder.  Unable to stop himself, he whispered, “Is this real?”. Suddenly, Newt drew away from him. He heard a voice in his head, one that was all too familiar.

_ You could have saved me. _

He inhaled sharply, and suddenly the warmth of Newt’s arms was gone.  In front of Thomas stood a boy- one he recognised as his friend, but one who didn’t look the way he chose to remember him.  

His skin was streaked with dark veins, and there was a bone-chilling terror in his eyes, a fear that carried to his voice when he spoke.

_ You could have saved me. _

Thomas blinked, and Newt was gone.  A few yards away from him stood a girl with raven hair and ice-blue eyes.  

“Teresa?” He took off running towards her.  The moment he reached her, she opened her mouth to speak.

_ You could have saved me,  _ she whispered as her legs gave out beneath her, and she crumpled to the ground.  

He reached out, hand trembling, to pull her back to her feet, but his fingertips passed through her bloodied hand as if she was merely a shadow.  Thomas blinked, and she was gone. 

He fell to his knees, unable to contain the anguished scream that escaped his lips.  The screams kept coming until he felt a strong arm around his shoulders, and hands hauled him to his feet.

“What happened, Thomas?” Minho shouted, “What the hell happened?”  The words never really reached his ears, and it took him a few moments to answer. “I saw them,” he replied.  His voice was hoarse, and scraped against his raw throat as he spoke, “Newt and Teresa. They were here. I saw them.”

He could see the fear in Minho’s brown eyes, and he shakily stepped away from the boy, terror racing through him.  Minho seemed as real as one could be in front of him, hair tousled from sleep, and his breathing coming hard from his sprint across the beach.  But Thomas couldn’t trust his own senses anymore, so he looked away, unable to bear the thought of the boy in front of him suddenly vanishing into the air.

When the sun rose, Minho stayed by Thomas’ side constantly, as if he was worried the latter would try to run away.  In an effort to relieve Minho of the fear in his eyes, Thomas tried the best he could to continue life as usual. He measured flour for Frypan, and helped Gally fix a hammock that had fallen down that night.  Anything that would help keep the sounds in his head at a minimum volume.

After a few days, things seemed bearable.  He managed to sleep for an hour or so at night, and even decided to race Brenda down the beach.  The worry in Minho’s eyes seemed to be much less than it had been before that night on the beach.  He smiled at him after dinner, and pulled him into a hug, whispering, “It’s good to have you back,” so quietly that at first, Thomas thought he had imagined it.

It was well past midnight when he heard them again.  The volume, the venom of their words took him aback as they always did.  But this time, he noticed something different. He always tried to respond to their torments, screaming back at them in his brain.  I’m sorry, he had shouted silently, I tried, I did. I’m so, so sorry. 

This time, the voice that responded was silent.  

He stood, a sense of purpose surging through them.  Silently, so as to not wake Minho, who slept in a hammock next to him, he navigated his way around sleeping bodies, and strode up the beach.  Thomas wasn’t quite sure exactly where he was going-- he’d only been there once with Minho on their first night in the safe haven, a night where their emotions ran too high to sleep, and the skepticism that this wasn’t the end, but rather another one of WICKED’s trials, ate away at them.  

Thomas was oddly calm as he approached the edge of the cliff.  Memories of him and Minho watching the ocean struck him, when the cold night air brushed against their skin, and they finally let themselves cry, weep for all that had happened.

For all those they had lost.

His hands didn’t shake as he stepped closer to the edge.  He heard a voice, so quiet that for a moment, he dismissed it as the whisper of the wind.

- _ I don’t blame you, Tommy.  I never did. _

He shook his head, breath coming in gasps.  Gone was the malicious tone of Newt’s voice, in its place was the soft intonation, the gentle accent he remembered so well.  

“I should have saved you.” he replied softly.

_ \- You saved me from losing myself.  There were times before we rescued Minho, times I thought I was going to lose myself completely to the virus. _

_ \- I thought of you, Tommy.  I thought of you. You kept me grounded, you kept me sane.  You were my anchor. I don’t blame you. I never will. _

A second voice joined Newt’s, and it too was devoid of the cruelty it had once haunted him with.

_ \- You did the right thing,  _ murmured Teresa.

_ \- You never would have made it to the Berg if I had gotten on first.  With that gunshot would, you could barely stand. It’s okay, it’s okay.  It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s. _

For a second, for a fleeting instant, he let himself believe that it was them.  That the phantom voices that had haunted him day and night were just that - phantoms.  That the real Newt, the real Teresa were the boy and girl who smiled at him from across the dinner table, that embraced him under the moonlight.  That he could remember the two of them by those gentle, innocent memories, that those golden memories were what they would want him to remember them by.

But then he remembered the way Newt’s skin had become tarnished with dark veins, the way Teresa collapsed when he approached her.

_ You could have saved me,  _ whispered the voices in his brain, and he nodded.

His hands trembled as he took another step forward. “I’m sorry.”

_ \- Tommy.  Tommy, please.  Don’t blame yourself. _

_ \- It’s okay.  Tom, it’s okay.  It’s going to be okay. _

He shook his head.  “I’m sorry,” he repeated, defeat heavy in his voice.

He jumped.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for suffering through that! 
> 
> if you enjoyed my fic, feel free to follow me on twitter (mazescorched) where i tweet about stuff that's usually less depressing then this fic. i'll also post stuff there about any writing i'm doing. have a great day/night!


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